October 16, 2015

Federal grant big win for Worcester legal aid program

As appeared in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Oct 8 2015.

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_preview”,”fid”:”370″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”180″,”style”:”float: right;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”180″}}]]The scope of unmet legal needs is an apparently intractable problem, as much here in Massachusetts as elsewhere in the country.

But now a Worcester-based legal aid organization is using a $200,000 federal grant to launch an innovative program that will attack the issue from a different angle: leveraging pro bono work from the private bar to help improve health outcomes for low-income families.

Community Legal Aid provides a wide range of legal services in central and western Massachusetts, from assistance for domestic violence victims to housing aid to help with disability benefits. Under an ambitious new two-year project, it will develop a partnership with UMass Memorial Medical Center to tackle the unmet legal needs that can impede the ability of health care providers to improve the health of low-income patients.

The planned collaboration provides for a staff attorney to be embedded at three primary care sites — two in Worcester and one in Clinton. The attorney will help the medical teams at those sites identify health-related legal issues, such as lack of access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or MassHealth benefits.

Families and individuals in need will then be referred for legal assistance. Those services will be provided by members of the private bar working with the aid of “tool kits” created by CLA.

The project is set to kick off in early November. By providing pro bono opportunities that are more transactional in nature and offering extensive mentoring from staff attorneys, CLA hopes to expand participation beyond the more traditional “Lawyer for a Day” programs that typically draw mostly litigators.

The goal is to build a roster of 100 private attorneys who will serve 180 families annually.

The project is being funded by an impressive $209,524 grant from the Legal Services Corp.’s Pro Bono Innovation Fund.

The process for obtaining the grant was highly competitive: Legal Services Corp. received nearly 60 letters of intent and invited 25 of those entities to submit applications. Of the 25 applicants, 15 made the final cut. CLA was the only Massachusetts-based organization to receive funding.

An evaluation component is baked into the grant: The project will follow up with individuals whose legal needs were met and determine whether they had better health outcomes that translated into cost savings.

It’s an ambitious project, but one that could have widespread benefits for vulnerable families. Kudos to CLA for crafting an innovative approach to a perennial problem and bringing substantial federal grant dollars to central Massachusetts.

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